Review: Marfa Intrigue at Octavia Art Gallery

Gambit, by D. Eric Bookhardt

"In 1979, the great minimalist sculptor Donald Judd bought a derelict army base near Marfa, Texas, so he would have space for his work. After his death, Marfa became an unlikely art community despite its remote desert location. Minimalist art can be elusive — I mostly ignored it until I worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a fascinating city so crowded, noisy and convoluted that it made me crave space and simplicity. I suddenly came to appreciate minimalist art."

My NOLA: 20 Questions with Regina Scully

Go NOLA, by Christopher Garland

"For as far back as she can remember, Regina Scully was making art. Growing up in Norfolk, Virginia, she always considered herself an artist—even before she took her first formal class at the local YMCA when she was six. Thus, it made sense to take the same journey as many of America’s artists before her: she left her hometown, studied at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, and then headed to one of the world’s meccas for visual arts, New York City. She went there because, as she says, “every [artist] is supposed to go there”; however, she couldn’t produce the pieces she wanted or get it out to audiences because she was working all the time to make ends meet. After four years, she was done with NYC. In 2004, she moved to New Orleans."

Regina Scully Interviwed on WWNO

Inside the Arts, by Diane Mack

"A new exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art complements traditional Japanese art with the contemporary work of New Orleans painter Regina Scully. WWNO's Eileen Fleming talks with NOMA's Lisa Rotondo-McCord and the artist herself about the unexpected connection of styles."

Escape at the New Orleans Museum of Art

Art E-Walk, by Sylvie Contiguglia

"Japonism is the term used to describe Japanese influence on European art. It flourished in the mid-nineteenth century due to a renewed trade between Japan and the continent following the seclusion era. Artists like Claude Monet with his famous painting The Water Lily-Pond, 1899, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh who collected Japanese prints with his brother Theo, and other Impressionist painters, were inspired by Japanese art.
The New Orleans Museum of Art just opened an exhibition: Regina Scully | Japanese Painting: Inner Journeys featuring works of the local artist presented along selected pieces of the museum's Japanese collection."

Review: Regina Scully's Japanese Landscape - Inner Journeys

Gambit, by D. Eric Bookhardt

"Where does art originate? Art schools teach techniques, theories, trends and history, but most of the artworks that survive the test of time have something mysterious or ineffable about them that can't be taught in school. Such art transcends time and space — where did the Mona Lisa's elusively beatific smirk come from and why does it affect us? Closer to home, there always has been something inexplicably Japanese about Regina Scully's complexly lyrical abstract paintings, yet the University of New Orleans graduate never studied Japanese art and has no explanation for their Asian tone. The recent acquisition of several of her canvases by the New Orleans Museum of Art inspired further interest in the parallels between her work and the museum's stellar collection of 18th- and 19th-century Japanese paintings and drawings, and the result is this unusual side-by-side expo."

Video Portrait: Regina Scully | Japanese Landscape: Inner Journeys

The New Orleans Museum of Art

Please enjoy this video portrait where artist Regina Scully speaks about the commonality between her abstract works and the paintings of the 18th and 19th century Edo-period Japanese artists. Her current exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art is on view through October 8th, 2017.

Tom Nussbaum | Not What It Is

American sculptor, illustrator and self-described maker Tom Nussbaum has a remarkable way of using positive/negative space and color. His breadth of abstract paintings and sculptures are intriguing for both their spontaneity and their subtle orderliness.

Painting is silent poetry with Betsy Eby

Ikoness, by Alix de Boisset

"In her paintings, Betsy Eby fuses the line between the musical and the visual composition. A classically trained pianist, she seeks in her work what Rothko described as “the place where music lives.” The layers and gestures of her paintings evoke musical spaces and rhythms while drawing on patterns found in nature. From her early childhood, musical and natural rhythms blended in Eby’s sensibility. She spent her first years of life in a small town on the Oregon coast, practicing at the family piano by the age of five. Today her work reveals that interconnected sensitivity: her delicate, organic compositions become synesthesias of sound and image."

Regina Scully | Japanese Painting: Inner Journeys

The New Orleans Museum of Art

"It was not until artist Regina Scully had the opportunity to closely explore the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA)’s collection of Japanese paintings that she realized the parallels between the art she was creating, and Chinese and Japanese antecedents. In Regina Scully | Japanese Landscape: Inner Journeys, on view April 7 – October 8, 2017, paintings from throughout Scully’s career are presented with a selection of Japanese works from NOMA’s renowned permanent collection, highlighting the apparent, yet unintentional, stylistic coincidences between the American artist and 18th and 19th century Asian art."

Review: Beauty and Isolation

The New Orleans Art Review, by Kathy Rodriguez

"There are concrete examples of the real/unreal present in an exhibition of digital photographs mounted for PhotoNOLA, the annual festival of photography in the city, at Octavia Gallery. The title, “SurREAL,” indicates emphasis on the actual presence of unbelievable parts of the images, which may appear new to the imagination of the viewer. Images by Tina Freeman, Irby Pace, Kenny Morrison, and Chuck Ramirez fill the walls of the airy rooms of the gallery. They show considerations of space, whether flattened or consciously expanded, which explore the traditional three-dimensional illusion in the two-dimensional plane of the documentary photograph; and the seams in documented reality, pieced together like a patchwork of experiences – much like recent events have seemed."

Pierre Bergian

Wall Street International

Pierre Bergian paints empty rooms. Sometimes there is a ladder, a picture frame, a table, but these seem to do little more than add to the emptiness. 'My paintings are a little similar to still lives,' he says. 'Emptiness fascinates me.' They are about light in space. 'I never paint artificial light. I love sunshine coming into a room with a lot of shadow. I make a difference between morning and afternoon light or evening light. I also like the light of the winter sun, coming in very deeply. Moonlight is fascinating! Especially in old houses, when this light reflects on the walls, floor and ceiling. Light in a building can be so delicate.'

Bergian’s rooms are a composite of spaces which have attracted him. 'Some of the painted interiors are quite realistic. Others are compilations of what I have seen – impressions of reality.'

Review: A Trio of Abstract Shows in the Warehouse District

Gambit, by D. Eric Bookhardt

"Kikuo Saito's paintings at Octavia Art Gallery reflect the Tokyo native's flair for floating, gestural brushstrokes inflected with a prismatic bravura derived from his deep understanding of great abstract painters such as Helen Frankenthaler, with whom he once worked. These paintings are from 2010 to 2015, his final years, and are so pristine we only can wonder what would have come next."

The Many Faces of Abstraction

Art E-Walk, by Sylvie Contiguglia

"At Octavia, it feels like a rush of colors when going through the entrance. An exuberant mixture of warm oranges, yellows, reds, moody greens or blues, covers the canvasses displayed along the walls. The late paintings of Kikuo Saito have the gestural quality of expressionism, with a twist."

A selection of works from the late artist Kikuo Saito to open at Octavia Art Gallery

Art Daily

"Octavia Art Gallery will present a selection of works from the late artist Kikuo Saito. The exhibition focuses on Saito’s work from 2010 – 2015, the artist’s final years. This will be the second solo exhibition of Saito’s work at the gallery."

Inspired by NOMA: Regina Scully

Arts Quarterly, New Orleans Museum of Art, Winter 2017

"NOMA acquired its first painting by Regina Scully in 2014 and added another this past year. Since then, the museum’s ties to this young New Orleans painter have grown even closer thanks to a collaboration initiated by Lisa Rotondo-McCord, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Asian Art."

A View from Above

Pelican Bomb, by Tina Freeman

"I seem to love polar and almost polar places, and Iceland is one of my favorites. I have always been fascinated by what one sees from the air, but I had never before had the opportunity to shoot from a small plane. Iceland is full of glaciers, and glacial water is a milky color. The earth in many places in Iceland is black due to the amount of volcanic activity, hence the unusual contrast of light water and dark earth. There are other colors in the water and land that I can’t account for—turquoise water and café-au-lait-colored water—but that is some of the fascination."

Review: Global Pop Culture in Paintings and Photocollages

Gambit, by D. Eric Bookhardt

"The cities with the most interesting art scenes usually have unique visual identities. Miami can be notoriously crass, but it's also dynamic and colorful thanks to Hispanic and Caribbean influences, which are seen in its art. If older Miami artists evoked the soulful sensibilities of their homelands, more recent arrivals like Brazilian native Rubem Robierb often embody a mix of tropical color and global pop culture. His big War-Hol Flowers painting recalls Andy Warhol's classic 1960s flower graphics, but it is based on the florid patterns made by hollow-point bullets on impact. Rose Bouquet, a painting of a hand grenade in a floral arrangement, is similarly ballistic. Ditto Butterfly II (pictured), a blood orange butterfly that is actually a bullet depicted against a blue background, and Love Changes Everything is a 3-foot-tall sculpture of a bullet with a tip covered in Swarovski crystals. Beautiful but creepy, these colorful, crisply executed works could be seen as glamorizing weaponry, but presumably were intended as critiques of pop culture's incessant fetishization of violence."

Talking Art, Life with Houston Native "Bond Girl" Lois Chiles

Houston Chronicle, by Molly Glentzer

After more than 30 years as an actress, Houston native Lois Chiles knows the feeling of being observed.

She was, perhaps, most watched for her turn as a Bond girl - she portrayed Holly Goodhead opposite Roger Moore in the 1979 James Bond film "Moonraker" - but also had feature roles in other notable films, including "The Great Gatsby," "The Way We Were" and "Broadcast News."

Although Chiles is still naturally gorgeous at 69, these days she prefers to be the observer. She spends as much as five hours, five days a week, in her New York studio, painting. Her subjects, most often, are nudes - a practice necessary to understanding what's underneath clothing when one paints.

50 Must-See Artworks at UNTITLED, Art Miami, NADA, PULSE, and More

Artsy Editorial, by Alexxa Gotthardt

"As Miami fair week approaches and galleries from around the globe begin to fill tents and convention centers all over the city, it’s important to strategically approach your itinerary. How else can you hit all the fairs—and artworks—you hope to see? Beyond the main event, Art Basel in Miami Beach, a crop of satellite fairs offer the opportunity to discover even more work, often by younger artists and at a lower price point. We’ve scoured the previews of Miami’s six strongest satellite fairs—UNTITLED, Art Miami, NADA, PULSE, CONTEXT, and Miami Project—to bring you 50 artworks you won’t want to miss on your 2016 tour."

Octavia Art Gallery at CONTEXT Art Miami

Booth 232

Review: The Irascible Remembered

Gambit, by D. Eric Bookhardt

"New Orleans native Fritz Bultman was one of the founders of the modern art movement known as abstract expressionism. Nicknamed "The Irascibles," its godfather was German expressionist Hans Hofmann, with whom Bultman studied as a precocious teenager in Munich in 1935. Both eventually became New York art stars, but Bultman's oeuvre is characterized by the warmer, more lyrical qualities seen in works like his circa 1974 canvas Intrusion of Blue, with its serpentine interplay of colors."

Living with Flowers

Carmen Almon featured in Martha Stewart Living, October 2016

"The world is full of beauty and there are few things more beautiful than flowers." begins photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo in her new book, In Bloom: Creating and Living with Flowers, which steps inside the studios and homes of 12 artists and designers who look to botanicals as their muse.

"Carmen has a real appreciation for plants, observing them in great detail. Although she's not scientific in her representations, the plants are immediately recognizable: They feel alive," Ngo says.

Of Narrative & the Surreal

The New Orleans Art Review, by Kathy Rodriguez

"Scully's exhibition, "Horizons in Space," includes a short video in which she explains her process and subject matter under a variety of categories: geography, intuition, and color. She begins by saying that "Painting is very powerful. It's its own reality." This statement about the autonomy of painting sets the tone for the Abstract Expressionist methodology she employs in her work, beginning each painting via intuition."

Marriage of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art in new exhibition at Octavia Art Gallery

Art Daily

"Octavia Art Gallery is presenting Pop Abstraction, a marriage of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. This exhibition characterizes the meeting of the two movements in the second half of the 20th century, during what is known as the post-war period."

North Kenner Comes to Life with "Beautification" Sculptures

The Times Picayune

"Henry Shane and Wayne Amedee stood on the Power Boulevard median in Kenner watching the crane operator slowly move his precious cargo. It was a special day for both Kenner businessman.

Shane and local artist Amedee's cooperative effort was coming to fruition. They watched as the 16-foot sculpture "Consolations - Lessons Learned" landed in its resting place to beautify the area, which is viewed by thousands of travelers every day."

Portrait of an Artist: Regina Scully

New Scuptures on Display in Kenner

Fox 8 Live

"Two new pieces of artwork were installed in the median of Power Boulevard today between 37th and 39th streets. "Consolations - Lessons Learned" was created by local artist Wayne Amedee. It is 8-feet high, 7-feet-2 inches wide and weighs 1,000 pounds. It is made of automotive painted aluminum.

The artwork was donated by Henry and Pat Shane. The City of Kenner says it is part of its 2030 plan to beautify and improve major corridors."

Review: Horizons in Space

Gambit, by D. Eric Bookhardt

"It ain't necessarily so," goes the George Gershwin song, one of the most lyrical takedowns of traditional wisdom ever penned. More recently, cognitive scientists have asserted that what we think we see "ain't necessarily so" either, but is more like a dumbed-down version of the swirling molecules described by modern physics — in the way a map simplifies the more complex reality of the landscape it represents. Some poets and artists explore the subtle mysteries below the outer facade, and this Horizons in Space expo is Regina Scully's most recent reflection on the inner life of the world around us."

New Houston Gallery Director

Lucy Thorp Joins the Octavia Art Gallery Team

Lucy Thorp was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She earned her BA in Art History and Spanish, graduating with High Honors from the University of Texas at Austin and has completed graduate studies at the University of Houston. Lucy has worked for the Examiner, Houston, and most recently with the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Lucy has also been involved in the New Orleans art scene and was a committee member for Prospect.3, one of the largest non-profit biennial of global contemporary art in the United States.

Please welcome Lucy to her role at Octavia Art Gallery.

The 10 Best Galleries in NOLA's Hip Warehouse District

The Culture Trip

The recently revitalized New Orleans Warehouse District is home to many of the city’s best galleries, museums, and restaurants. The Contemporary Arts Center opened in the neighborhood in 1976. In 1984, the World’s Fair in New Orleans, which took place largely in the Warehouse District, further helped to cement the area’s reputation as a cultural center.

The New Orleans Museum of Art acquires piece by Regina Scully

Octavia Art Gallery is very proud to annouce that Regina Scully's Cosmographia has been acquired by the New Orleans Museum of Art. The piece is currently on view in the Modern and Contemporary Art Wing.

New Gallery Director

Kristina Larson Joins the Octavia Art Gallery Team

Octavia Art Gallery is pleased to announce that Kristina Larson has joined the gallery team as the new gallery Co-Director.

Kristina is a graduate of Tufts University and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and earned a Mater’s degree in Arts Administration from The Savanna College of Art and Design. Kristina has worked for the Ministry of Artisana in Morocco, as a United States Peace Corps volunteer, for the Contemporary Arts Center as the Development Specialist for the Whitney White Linen Night fundraiser, and most recently as a Senior Fine Art Consultant with Martin Lawrence Galleries.

Please welcome Kristina to her role at Octavia Art Gallery.

Review: Anastasia Pelias

ArtHouston Magazine

"An abstractionist in the truest form, Pelias works intuitively to render canvases that capture moments and places she has experienced. Using oil paint, gesso, turpentine and gravity, Pelias develops layers of rich color – from dense saturations to lightly veiled washes – with gestural marks that contribute to the palpable energy emitted from each canvas."

Irby Pace - Abracadabra

FotoFest 2016 Biennial

Octavia Art Gallery - Houston is excited to announce that we will be a FotoFest 2016 Participating Space featuring a solo exhibition by guest artist Irby Pace. The exhibition will run from March 11th to April 9th with an opening reception on March 12th from 6pm - 8pm.

Review: Caio Fonseca: Navagating Change

The New Orleans Art Review, by Kathy Rodriguez

"CHRISTOPHER SAUCEDO AND CAIO FONSECA, respectively showing simultaneously in “Pints, Quarts, and Gallons” at Le Mieux Gallery and “Selections from the Studio” at Octavia Gallery on Julia Street, both hail from New York, but their exhibits show other commonalities. Each graphically emphasizes the most basic, fundamental concepts of design – color, time, volume and mass, proportion and scale, line and shape – resulting in profoundly personal and highly evocative compositions."

Julia Street and Beyond

The New Orleans Art Review, by Marian S. McLellan

"Octavia Art Gallery’s press release tells us that the three artists included in “Symmetric Equivalence” seek to “explore organic and geometric forms whose patterns have an underlying symmetry or synchronicity.” Sculptor Gil Bruvel, originally from France but now living in Texas, is represented with freestanding stainless steel heads and framed wood and resin faces that recall Jacques Lipchitz’s brand of sculpture. Bruvel’s loosely arranged carved blocks, painted in white shaded with graphite, make-up the harlequin face in Cubist #8 while Leslie Wilkes’ tightly orchestrated paintings are kaleidoscopic compositions of polygons."

Octavia voted Favorite Art Gallery

New Orleans Magazine

A Life of Art

Montgomery Advertiser, by Liz Ely

"One of Alabama’s most widely known and respected artists is back home. Known throughout the state and worldwide as Nall, the Troy native recently unveiled a massive mosaic, “Sunrise Pensee,” at the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel and Convention Center. The mosaic will permanently reside at the hotel and comes to Montgomery from Paris, where it was originally exhibited for Christian Dior Perfumes at the Grand Palais."

Debbie Fleming Caffery : Alphabet

L'oeil de la Photographie, by Elizabeth Avedon

In her new book, Alphabet, Debbie Fleming Caffery chose twenty-six black and white photographs, each corresponding with letters of the alphabet, from her extensive archive along with some images she created that were inspired by her granddaughter. Fall Line Press publisher, William Boling, says it is “a children’s book disguised into an art book.”

Anastasia Pelias in "American Art: 1945 to the Present"

Mobile Museum of Art

Beginning November 13, 2015, the Mobile Museum of Art will present an exhibition expanding on a theme introduced in the museum’s first floor exhibition, 150 Years of American Art (ca. 1795- 1945). While that exhibition provides a visual narrative of emerging American identity as seen through art, this exhibition features art and decorative arts created since World War II, as American art emerged as a major force in the global art world.

Painter: Caio Fonseca

Film Screening at the Contemporary Arts Center

Painter explores the illusive mystery of the process of making art. From his studio on the Italian coast, the contemporary American painter Caio Fonseca conjures whimsically arresting works of abstract art.

Jeffrey Pitt and Betsy Stewart included in "Objects of Interest: Recent Acquisitions for the Permanant Collection"

The Ogden Museum of Southern Art

From September 21, 2015 through February 5, 2016, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art will present an exhibition of recent additions to the museum’s growing collection of Southern art. Often on view for the first time in the museum, these paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture represent the depth and breadth of the museum’s collection practices.

The exhibition includes Betsy Stewart's Bioverse No. 3 and Jeffrey Pitt's Dead as a Dinosaur.

Octavia Art Gallery at the Texas Contemporary Art Fair

Booth 613

Review: The Spaces We Know

Houston Press, by Susie Tommaney

"For a glimpse of some dangerously political work, veiled as Americana with a touch of saccharine, be sure to check out Jin Joo Chae’s piece, The Sweet Taste of Capitalism with Communist Cream III in The Spaces We Know exhibit at Octavia Art Gallery, a group show featuring works by emerging Asian artists."

'Tribute in Light Captures Grief and Joy of 9/11 Anniversary'

The New York Times, by David W. Dunlap

"Independently and almost simultaneously, five artists and architects — John Bennett, Gustavo Bonevardi, Richard Nash Gould, Julian LaVerdiere and Paul Myoda — came up with roughly the same idea in the autumn of 2001. The Municipal Art Society helped harness and meld their visions and make the project a reality, working with the lighting designer Paul Marantz and with Michael Ahern, an events producer."

Tina Freeman Honored

LOVE in the Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art

September 25, 2015

The annual LOVE in the Garden event at the New Orleans Museum of Art honors local artists whose work and lives have made a contribution to the city of New Orleans. This year's honorees include Octavia artist Tina Freeman.

Review: Symmetric Equivalence

Gambit, by D. Eric Bookhardt

"Urbane geometry is the order of the day at Octavia Art Gallery, where Leslie Wilkes' geometric paintings evoke a kaleidoscopic sensibility employing opaquely vibrant colors reminiscent of jade, amethyst, sandstone and the like."

'Baton Rouge After the Storm' photo exhibit illustrates great upheaval in city after Katrina

The Advocate

"With the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaching, area museums and libraries are commemorating the event with photography exhibits of the storm’s devastation and its aftermath. One new exhibit looks at what happened in Baton Rouge when the hurricane hit.

The LSU Museum of Art in the Shaw Center for the Arts, 100 Lafayette St., is showing “Debbie Fleming Caffery: Baton Rouge After the Storm” through Aug. 30.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Caffery, a Louisiana photographer, created a powerful series of photographs of Baton Rouge’s River Center, where the National Guard had been called to manage the surge of people from New Orleans seeking shelter after the storm."

Review: Caffery's Poignant Moments

By Terrington Calas

Debbie Fleming CafferySouthern Work
Octavia Art Gallery

"Two somber, absorbing photographs, Junior and Sarah, are exemplars of the contemplative portrait - the soul-searching, soul-revealing portrait. And, for the viewer, it's often a markedly painful kind. But it discloses human truth as few other genres can. The two images are part of Debbie Fleming Caffery's "Southern Work" (on view at Octavia Art Gallery), a strong, if unwieldly, exhibition chronicling her efforts over the past several years. Caffery has long been a master of the contemplative portrait, most notably featuring the working people of rural Louisiana. This display has but a few examples, but they dominate..."

Octavia Art Gallery at Seattle Art Fair

Booth 703

6 Cuban Artists You Should Know

Vanity Fair

ALEX HERNÁNDEZ DUEÑAS AND ARIAMNA CONTINO MENDOZA

Collaborating on work for the Biennial and a show at Havana's prestigious art gallery, Galería Habana, the young couple, in their early 30s, fuse their artistic skill with a social and political awareness.

The Hot Art of Havana

Alex Hernández Dueñas featured in Cigar Aficionado

June 2015

Gordon Mott visits studios of Cuban artists in Havana:

"No visitors can escape the palpable excitement in the Cuban artistic community . Three young artists- Frank Mujica, Adrián Fernández, and Alex Hernández - have set up a communal studio and gallery in a house on broad avenue in Havana, a kind of four-lane street dividing two city neighborhoods. The signs of decay so prevalent throughout the city are absent inside the gate of the house. The building is whitewashed and protected by a modern alram system box on the door, and inside the marble floors gleam below the large works of each artist hanging on the walls..."

Review: Southern Work

Gambit, by D. Eric Bookhardt

"Growing up in south Louisiana's sugar cane country, Debbie Fleming Caffery was immersed in the area's annual harvest rituals. Although increasingly mechanized, sugar cane farming still features dramatic events like the pre-harvest burning of the fields to remove leaves from the stalks prior to processing. When seen from above, swaths of Acadiana resemble a fiery apocalypse."

The In-Between: Debbie Fleming Caffery at Octavia Art Gallery

Pelican Bomb, by Brooke Schueller

"Debbie Fleming Caffery’s black-and-white photography, at its most basic, is about contrast. In “Southern Work,” her poignant rendering of the Mississippi Delta, Caffery portrays Southern landscapes and their stewards."

Gallery Walk: Wayne Amedee

The New Orleans Art Review

By Marian S. McLellan

"Downtown on Julia Street at Octavia Art Gallery, more rectilinear forms are found in the two and three-dimensional works of artist Wayne Amedee, 2014 recipient of the Artist of the Year Award given by the Louisiana Office of Cultural Development and creator of the red and green sculpture in City Park, Grateful Labors."

Japanese Artist Kikuo Saito Shows Off His Many Styles in Houston Exhibit

Houston Press, by Susie Tommaney

4/20/2015

Kikuo Saito reviewed in Houston Press by Susie Tommaney.

"There is a restlessness to the works by New York-based Japanese artist Kikuo Saito, on display now at Octavia Art Gallery, Houston. Throughout the past 30 years, this abstract expressionist has experimented with a variety of techniques including bold abstracts with wide brush strokes and unpainted areas, jumbled snail trails of saturated color that take over the canvas, partially obscured Roman letters arranged on a grid, oil and crayon on paper and a sparse abstraction of what could be stage pieces."

Carole Feuerman's works among the latest additions to Poydras Corridor Sculpture Exhibition

Presented by The Helis Foundation and Sculpture for New Orleans, the Poydras Corridor Scupture Exhibition is comprised of 22 contemporary-style giant sculptures between Interstate 10 and Convention Center Boulevard.

Artwork is rotated onto the neutral ground on a regular basis, chosen by sculptor Michael Manjarris, of Sculpture for New Orleans, and Bradley Sumrall, chief curator of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

Octavia Art Gallery is very excited about the installations, and Feuerman has received a great deal of press surrounding the works. Please see the links to press below:

Art Daily

Octavia Art Gallery presents their first solo exhibition with Louisiana-based artist Debbie Fleming Caffery. Southern Work will bring together two distinct series that have been pivotal subjects for Caffery throughout her career as well as a recent project inspired by her grandchildren.

Michel Varisco's 'Turning' Wins Living with Water Arts Pitch

"The winner of the first local arts-oriented pitch contest was announced this morning at New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. New Orleans native and fine arts photographer Michel Varisco was named winner of the Living With Water Civic Arts Design Pitch for her project Turning.

The $25,000 prize was decided by an audience text-in vote at The Chicory, following commentary from a critical feedback panel consisting of Sophie Harris, Executive Director of Friends of Lafitte Corridor; David Waggonner, principal of Waggonner & Ball Architects; Councilmember Susan Guidry; and Bill Gilchrist, Director of Place-Based Planning for the City of New Orleans."

Tina Freeman: Artist Spaces

Ogden Museum of Southern Art

With this body of photographs, and the accompanying book, Octavia artist Tina Freeman documents the working spaces of twenty-one New Orleans artists. This series sheds new light on the artists' work and process. From George Dureau to Willie Birch, each of the artists included invested their aesthetic into the spaces where they work. Ranging from established masters to a young graffiti artist, these images give insight into process and personality, providing the viewer glimpses into the creative process.

Freeman's book, Artist Spaces: New Orleans, is available for sale at the gallery.

"Gallery Gallivanting" features Carole A. Feuerman

Papercity Magazine, by Catherine D. Anspon

03/01/2015

"Prematurely Discarded" chosen as "Must See Exhibit"

Local Houston Magazine

02/06/2015

Chuck Ramirez exhibition mentioned in Art Notes

Papercity Magazine, by Catherine D. Anspon

2/1/2015

"Chuck Is in the House: The late Chuck Ramirez was the heart and soul of the San Antonio art scene. Now he gets a posthumous survey at Octavia Art Gallery, where director Illa Gaunt is a Ramirez expert."

Review of "Prematurely Discarded: Photographs by Chuck Ramirez"

Houston Press, by Alexandra Irrera

1/22/2015

"Part pensive vanitas, part ready-made portraits, Chuck Ramirez’s photographs of mundane objects are rendered with the respect and attention that allow his subjects to do just this: Look back. Thirteen portrait-like works from the recently deceased San Antonio artist have been assembled for Prematurely Discarded: Photographs by Chuck Ramirez. Larger than life and dressed in bright, richly revealing lighting, works in Prematurely Discarded bear many of the trademark characteristics of Ramirez’s visually minimalist yet conceptually complex style."

Joy, mourning mingle in Wayne Amedee's latest work

The New Orleans Advocate, by John D'addario

"As an expression of lived experience, all art is a form of autobiography. In Wayne Amedee's show of new work at Octavia Gallery, however, that autobiographical self-expression has taken an even more intimate turn."

Pelican Bomb, By Brooke Schueller

"In "Alluvial Constructs," curator Laura Sandoval considers the curious paradox of present-day New Orleans—a city simultaneously undergoing rapid construction and degradation. The exhibition brings together new and existing works by a selection of local and international artists. The result is a visually varied, richly layered exploration that allows for larger themes of transformation and transcendence in the city’s history to emerge."

Review: Carole A. Feuerman's Solo Exhibition Celebrates Hyperrealism

Houston Press, by Jim J. Tommaney

11/17/2014

Hyperrealism is in full swing at the intimate Octavia Art Gallery, as Carole A. Feuerman displays a major new work, Christina, created for this exhibition, along with a number of works from the past few years. Hyperrealism art is intended to simulate reality so precisely that the art can easily be mistaken for the real thing.

Review: Ayo Scott, "The Lies We Believe"

The Times Picayune

"Artist Ayo Scott says that he began his series of post-modern digital drawings, now on display at Octavia art gallery, somewhat casually. In a classic post-modern mode, the 34-year-old artist set out to toy with the meaning of some of western art's best known images, including Grant Wood's "American Gothic," Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker," Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine Chapel."

Review: Ayo Scott, "The Lies We Believe"

Gambit

Artful Endeavor

The Society Diaries

"Octavia Art Gallery recently hosted a gathering to launch its pop-up art show in collaboration with curator Alice Carrington Foultz at the historic Roosevelt Library in San Antonio. The show will run through August 13 and the exhibition curated by Foultz, Summer Solstice, combines the works of artists represented by the gallery, as well as several local San Antonio artists."

Review: Michel Varisco, "Fluid States"

Gambit

After spending many years documenting the splendors and struggles of Louisiana wetlands and the Gulf of Mexico, Michel Varisco shifted her focus to a new perspective on the world's waterways. Her Fluid States expo at Octavia Art Gallery reveals unusual views of those bodies of water and the life-forms they contain, the aqueous environs of China's turbulent rivers and New Zealand's exotic seascapes.

Art Studio - Capturing the Cosmos: Home & Design Magazine

Betsy Stewart's paintings explore the workings of the universe

BY TINA COPLAN | PHOTOGRAPHY BY GREG R. STALEY

MAY/JUNE 2014

At a local gathering of The Explorers Club, Washington painter Betsy Stewart chatted with a group of scientists. When they asked how her work was going, she reached for her iPhone and pulled up a photo of her newest painting. Against a midnight-blue background, the image showed brilliant bursts of orange that appeared to drift forward and vanish back into dark obscurity.

Wayne Amedee Selected as Artist of the Year
by Louisiana Office of Cultural Development

April 18, 2014

Octavia Art Gallery is excited to announce that artist Wayne Amedee has been selected by the Louisiana Office of Cultural Development to receive the award for Artist of the Year! Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne and the Office of Cultural Development are recognizing 17 honorees at the 2014 Louisiana Culture Awards reception at the Capitol Park Museum on Tuesday, April 22.

We are honored for Amedee to be included in this list of distinguished individuals and organizations that will be recognized for their efforts to highlight and cultivate our state's cultural resources.

Octavia Art Gallery named The Best Gallery in Louisiana, 2014

American Art Awards

April 11, 2014

Each year, the American Art Awards, with an intent to introduce the best American galleries to unknown artists worldwide, selects their top 25 picks for popular and accomplished galleries, only one per state. President of AAA, Thom Bierdz, shared with me why AAA has selected Octavia above the many other Louisiana galleries.

Walter Anderson at Octavia Art Gallery

March 1, 2014

Octavia Art Gallery currently has three large Walter Anderson works on paper in inventory. Anderson's depictions of the plants, animals, and people of the Gulf Coast have placed him in the forefront of American painters of the Twentieth Century. These three larger scale works from his Oldfields period reflect his training, innovation and thorough understanding of the history of art.

Images and details on the works are available upon request.

Review: Terra Incognita

Gambit

February 18, 2014

"One might say abstraction is quietly making a comeback today, but it's been alive and well all along. Fashions change, but most artists remain somewhat consistent. That said, there is indeed a new breed of abstraction that reflects 21st century consciousness. Regina Scully's Terra Incognita expo at Octavia Art Gallery is a case in point."

Feature on Octavia Art Gallery

Art + Design

December 7, 2013

Review: Anastasia Pelias at Octavia Art Gallery

Pelican Bomb

November 26, 2013

"So much of color field painting—the work of Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, Mark Rothko—has been read in terms of purity of expression, an attempt to grasp sublimity through color. Despite its critics past and present, the aesthetic ideals continue to resonate today, as seen in Anastasia Pelias’ show “Ritual Devotion” on view at Octavia Art Gallery."

Octavia partners with New Orleans BioInnovation Center

October 9, 2013

Octavia Art Gallery is pleased to be partnering with the New Orleans BioInnovation Center to facilitate a rotating exhibition of artwork in their new location.

The New Orleans BioInnovation Center, a Gold LEED certified facility, offers 66,000 square feet of lab, office, and conference space needed to cultivate life science startups in New Orleans. The Center is part of a new wave of advancements in Louisiana which are at the forefront of today's biotechnology surge. As a cornerstone of Louisiana's commitment to nurturing biotechnology within the state, the Center is a technology business incubator that aims to stimulate bioscience entrepreneurship in the New Orleans area.

Grover Mouton Honored

LOVE in the Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art

September 27, 2013

The annual LOVE in the Garden event at the New Orleans Museum of Art honors local artists whose work and lives have made a contribution to the city of New Orleans. This year's honorees include Octavia artist Grover Mouton.

Review: Home

The Gambit New Orleans

August 8, 2013

"Octavia Gallery's expansive new Julia Street location in a superbly restored 19th-century building has got to be one of the most impressive new exhibition spaces in the region. The gallery's current Home group expo is also impressive with its array of work by top-rank Louisiana-born New York art stars like Lynda Benglis, Keith Sonnier and Rashaad Newsome."

Whitney White Linen Night 2013

The Times Picayune

August 6, 2013

"Who made the creepy-cute stuffed spiders? I visited Octavia Gallery’s new spot on Julia Street, where I encountered a swarm of charming soft sculpture arachnids in a sunny corner. The glistening spiders, composed of clear vinyl and patterned fabric, were a showstopper,"

Louisiana Contemporary at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art

August 1, 2013

Recognizing the need to engage a contemporary audience that appreciates the vibrant visual culture of Louisiana and the role of New Orleans as a rising, international art center, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art has organized the second annual Louisiana Contemporary presented by Regions Bank.

Octavia artists E2 (Epaul Julian and Elizabeth Kleinveld) and Wayne Amedee have been selected to be included in the exhibition. The exhibition runs from August 3 - September 22, 2013.

Review: King of Arms

July 25, 2013

"New Orleans native and ascendant New York art-star Rashaad Newsome has been merging high art and street culture in a trajectory that included the 2010 Whitney Biennial, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and now NOMA, where his King of Arms sculptural collages appear downstairs."

Rashaad Newsome's work will be included in the upcoming exhibition Home at Octavia Art Gallery.

Carole A. Feuerman at the 55th Venice Biennale

June 1, 2013

Carole A. Feuerman’s bronze, The Golden Mean, was completed specifically for the Venice Biennale and is on view at the entrance to the Giardini in the courtyard of the infamous Paradiso cafe.

Additionally, Feuerman's Quan is currently on view in the Venice Biennale as part of the exhibit Personal Structures held in the prestigious Palazzo Bembo, which overlooks the Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge

April 30, 2013

Mary Fitzpatrick's article covers the history and restoration of 800 Magazine Street - the incredible building which will be home to Octavia Art Gallery's new space, opening on White Linen Night (August 3, 2013).

The Ogden Museum of Southern Art acquires piece by Jeffrey Pitt

February 21, 2013

Octavia Art Gallery is very proud to announce that The Ogden Museum of Southern Art has acquired a work by Jeffrey Pitt for their permanent collection. The painting comes from the Living with Pop exhibition (Octavia Art Gallery, Fall 2012).